MIR Food and Beverage Dept. wins Pa-Berdehan 2011

Miniloc Island Resort’s Food and Beverage Department grabbed the top prize in Pa-Berdehan: The El Nido Resorts Eco Challenge 2011 with their three-part project entitled “Green-Minded Waiters”. MIR F&B Supervisor Leonardo Viaña Jr. received the award and PhP 10,000 cash prize for the department from Ten Knots Development Corp. President Laurent Lamasuta and Asian Conservation Foundation Chairman Leigh Talmage-Perez.

MIR F&B bested entries from Lagen Island Resort (LIR) Engineering, Apulit Island Resort (AIR) F&B, and AIR Housekeeping. In keeping with the 2011 theme of “Green is Gold”, projects were judged on financial cost-benefit analysis (40%), creativity and originality (20%), reproducibility (20%), and environmental impact (20%). The “Green-Minded Waiters” project of MIR F&B consisted of three parts: using fresh buko pandan juice instead of bottled fruit juice concentrate for the welcome drinks, using organic herbs from the Ten Knots Philippines farm for the guests’ tea instead of buying tea bags, and sewing old umbrella covers together to turn them into a reusable bag and replacing the plastic bags used to protect their equipment during transport for outside functions.

The other submitted projects were:

• LIR Engineering – recycling old candles used during private dinner set-ups into new candles
• AIR Housekeeping – using used rice sacks instead of plastic garbage bags for collecting trash from the guest rooms
• AIR F&B – recycling old candles used during private dinner set-ups into new candles for table centerpieces

All projects resulted in the increase or maintenance of the El Nido Resorts standard of service while decreasing environmental impact and operating costs.